Roy's Reflections-Nurse Wretched
by Washingtonmyhome
Summary: From 'Nuisance'. Roy stands up to the nasty nurse from that episode when she tries to bully him and Marco. A little footnote here, I gave the nurse the name Nurse Wretched as a play on Nurse Ratched.


Roy's Reflections-Nurse Wretched

I have NEVER met such a rotten nurse in my life.

She was known around Rampart by a variety of unflattering names. Her Royal Bitchiness. The Wicked Nurse of Rampart. The Bitter Pill. Major Pain in The Ass. Chilly Pilly. The RN from Hell. The Registered Hearse. Nurse Nazi. And that was just a few of the nicer names I heard for her.

But by far, my favorite name for this nurse is Nurse Wretched, which is the name Johnny dubbed her with.

Her real name is Loveday Zimmerman.

Loveday? What kind of name is **that**?

First of all, I have never heard of anyone named Loveday .

Second of all, **LOVE** is the last trait I would associate with this woman.

Rude, abusive, strict, abrupt, narrow minded, superior. Those are just a few of the attributes I'd associate with Nurse Zimmerman.

The first encounter I ever had with Nurse Wretched, um Loveday Zimmerman, RN, was three days ago. Craig Brice, Marco Lopez, and I had been sent into a fire in an abandoned chemical plant. Nobody needed to be rescued, so the three of us were running a hose on the fourth floor of the building.

The floor collapsed underneath the three of us, and we were stranded in a room on the 3rd floor.

Marco had eaten quite a bit of smoke and had several cuts on his face.

Craig, though, seemed to be able to fall into a sewage treatment pond and come up smelling like a rose. He didn't have even a scratch. The Perfect Paramedic leads a charmed life, that's for sure.

But me? No charmed life here. I ended up with 3 broken ribs, a concussion, cuts and bruises, a broken left wrist, smoke inhalation, and 20 minutes out cold. So, here I am at Rampart. Marco went home yesterday, so Johnny and I are rooming together.

As I said before, my first encounter with Nurse Wretched was 3 days ago. Marco and I had been put into a room together. For lack of something better to do, we were watching a terrible soap opera called _Minutes of Our Lives_. Talk about garbage! Bad organ music, a woman lying on a couch in a psychiatrists office telling a bad story about a bad dream, and then flirting with the doctor. **Yuck!** How can people stand this crap?

We were saved by Johnny's arrival in our room. He was in a wheelchair and wearing his favorite blue bathrobe.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Welcome to Rampart! I am in charge of laundry. I'm also in charge of morale! How you guys doing?

I grinned in delight. My partner definitely knows how to lift a person's spirits.

"I guess this is better than the soap opera," I told my partner.

"Where's Brice?" I asked.

Johnny grinned his lopsided grin.

"Would you believe he got out of this without a scratch?"

Oh, man, that figures. That man is a pompous jackass, and like I said before, he can fall into the previously mentioned sewage treatment pond and come up smelling like a rose. I'd like to give Craig Brice a good swift kick in the rear! There is nothing so irritating as a know-it-all.

"I guess that shows how the 'big fireman in the sky' looks out for the righteous," I remarked acidly.

"Not really. Do you know who his partner is now that you're out?" he queried, smiling sardonically.

"I can't imagine. Who?"

Who would **WANT** to be partnered with the Walking Rulebook?

"You're not going to believe this. But Bellingham," Johnny said. He'd tried to keep a straight face, but he betrayed himself by chuckling a little. I was trying not to laugh, picturing Bob Bellingham with The Walking Rulebook. Bob is a good firefighter/paramedic, but he's a huge slob and not always quick on the uptake. He's known around the department as 'The Animal', and not for nothing. He's a slob in epic proportions.

"Not The Animal," Marco exclaimed.

"Yep, The Animal," Johnny confirmed, "Can you imagine, the World's perfect paramedic and the biggest slob in the department?"

A match made in Heaven, of course.

"There going to drive each other bananas in a week!" Marco predicted.

I was gleeful. "Well, it just goes to show there is a meaning to life after all."

Johnny was about to say something else, when the door opened to reveal a nurse Marco and I had never seen. Like all the other nurses at Rampart, she was dressed in a white uniform and cap, dyed red hair in a severe bun under that cap. She had way too much makeup on, which threw her severe, disapproving expression into stark relief. Her nametag read 'Loveday Zimmerman, RN'.

"Gage, you're AWOL. Ugly, ugly." She clicked her tongue.

Bitchy, bitchy. That was what came into my mind at her snotty attitude.

Johnny shrugged and grinned apologetically. I couldn't believe this nurse's attitude or Johnny's meek acquiescence to it. Johnny's true personality is anything but meek, so why was he pandering to the nurse? Fear, maybe? Disgusting! John Gage can run into a fully involved burning building without batting an eye, but dealing with a snippy nurse and letting his fear of her control him? That's nuts.

"Well, are you going to roll that thing or do I have to carry you?" Nurse Wretched snarled.

"I'm going, I'm going," Johnny mumbled. He started pushing the wheelchair out only to have the nurse grab the handles and shove Johnny's wheelchair out of our room.

"Oh!" John exclaimed as the wheelchair rolled out of the room.

I was disgusted with the way the rude nurse had ejected Johnny forcibly from our room. But, despite my disgust, I didn't want to rub her the wrong way any more than I had to. I guess I'm a hypocrite because I felt like I had to pander to Zimmerman, too.

"I don't understand," I said, trying to appease the woman.

She looked at me with contempt.

"No insubordination from you, bright eyes," she snapped.

Ouch! She bites. Hard. I don't understand why she threw Johnny out of our room, either.

"I don't understand," I said again, "We were just talking."

The nurse looked at me scornfully again. "He knows I have a schedule to keep. It's 1100 hours. It's time for his bath."

Bath? You give him a bath? Oh, yeah. I can just imagine what a bath from **you** would be like. Probably some kind of medieval torture.

"Bath?" I repeated, feeling sick to my stomach.

Nurse Wretched smiled sadistically.

"That's right. Bath. In exactly 15 minutes, I'll be back. And that's right, Steve Stunning, you're next!" She raked me up and down with blue eyes cold enough to freeze Antarctica. She closed the door and left.

Marco and I looked at each other fearfully. He dove under his covers.

I'm sure my eyes looked like dinner plates.

A moment later, though, my sanity returned. Who did Loveday Zimmerman think she was to push me or anyone else around? We may be patients, but we're people, too.

I remembered Johnny mentioning to me a couple of days earlier that he'd met Nurse Zimmerman and that she'd been rather rough with him when she'd taken a blood sample from him. When he'd protested, she'd said several things that had rubbed him the wrong way.

Clearly, she thought she was superior to him and was threatened by any challenge to that 'superiority'.

"I have been doing this since you were born. I don't need advice from 'hotshot paramedics'."

Johnny had reminded her that "I do this for a living, too." Only to get a sharp retort from Zimmerman.

"I was in Korea. No backtalk."

Oh, so you have been doing this since before either one of us was born. And you were in Korea? And we're supposed to be impressed? That's news to me.

Well, you witch, I've got news for you. Hotshot paramedics have feelings, too. And this hotshot paramedic won't be pushed around.

At 11:15, I was given my chance to test my resolve for the first time.

Just as Nurse Wretched promised, um threatened, she arrived bearing all the paraphernalia for a bed bath. She also was smiling sadistically. Time for me to wipe that sadistic smile from her overly made up face.

"Okay, Steve Stunning. Time for your bath. Take off your gown."

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Nurse Wretched.

She looked at me as if I'd grown two heads.

"Start stripping, Steve Stunning!"

"No," I said firmly.

Marco looked at me strangely. I'm usually the one that will capitulate rather than make waves.

"What did you say?" Nurse Wretched said ominously. I didn't like the nurse's tone of voice at all. It scared me. Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let her win.

"I said **NO!** And I'll keep saying as often as I have to until you get the message."

Of course, Loveday Zimmerman, RN couldn't let a patient disobey HER, the greatest nurse in the world.

"I told you to take off your gown, Steve Stunning. Now, do it or I'll forcibly remove it myself!"

Oh, that awful nickname! Steve Stunning. If that had been meant as a compliment, I would have been flattered. But that is nothing but a condescending insult. Same with 'Bright Eyes'. No way will I allow this anymore.

"My name is Roy DeSoto. And my friend in the other bed is Marco Lopez. We are not nameless patients you can order around."

"You will do as you're told, Steve Stunning," the Wicked Nurse of Rampart blustered.

I don't know why I did it, but I stuck out my tongue and blew a raspberry at The Bitter Pill.

"Oh, no, Roy. Now you're in for it!" Marco whispered.

"Shut up, Marco!" I hissed.

"Just wait until I tell Dr. Brackett how uncooperative you're being!" my adversary threatened.

I was quaking inside, but again, I couldn't back down. If I did, the Nurse Nazi would continue to

get away with her bullying of patients.

"And just what do you think Brackett will do to me? Ground me? Turn me over his knees and tan my hide? Send me to the psych unit and put me in a straitjacket and a padded room?" I challenged.

The Wicked Nurse of Rampart grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me hard. That shaking made my broken ribs and I couldn't stop myself from moaning in pain. The Nurse from Hell smiled triumphantly.

"That hurt, didn't it? Maybe now, Bright Eyes, you'll remember who's boss and obey orders."

Good God, I found more humanity in the Army during my time in Vietnam than I was finding from this horrid nurse whose name is just the opposite of her true personality. How she became a nurse is anyone's guess.

"Oh, so you're think you're boss, huh? And you think I should obey your orders? As if you're a Marine drill sergeant and I'm your soldier who is supposed to ask 'how high' when you tell me to jump. Well, _NURSE ZIMMERMAN ,_ I've got news for you: I'm not your soldier and you can't make me follow orders."

By this time, I'd unknowingly acquired an audience besides Marco. Johnny, Joanne, Dr. Brackett, Dixie, Jim O'Brien, Chet, Mike, and Cap were all standing there witnessing the battle of wills between me and The Registered Hearse.

"I was in Korea. Now stop be insubordinate and remove your gown," The Wicked Nurse ordered.

So now, she thinks she can play that card. I'm still not impressed. I found more empathy even in the Viet Cong when they briefly held me prisoner during my service in Vietnam.

"Oh, so you were in Korea. Big deal, I was in Vietnam, and I'm finding more empathy from the Viet Cong than I'm finding in you, Nurse Wretched."

That ominous look again from Zimmerman. "What did you just call me?"

Oops! Roy, you twit, you just screwed up BIG Time by calling her Nurse Wretched. What weren't you thinking, DeSoto? My stomach did nervous flip flops. Pulling my IV, putting my clothes on, and running out of Rampart to some middle of nowhere place, like Yellowknife, Canada was starting to look good.

Pull yourself together, Roy, I told myself. Yes, you did make a booboo by actually calling her Nurse Wretched to her face. But, you have never run away from a fight before. You can't start now, DeSoto.

But I was getting tired of matching wits with Chilly Pilly. I wouldn't let her win, but this battle of wills couldn't go on forever.

"Yes, I called you Nurse Wretched. If you can't figure why, then you are really dense. But never mind that. The fact is, you have NO right to barge in here blustering about and treating we patients like little kids"

The nurse looked at me like she'd heard me speaking in Swahili.

"Quiet! You're just a patient. You can't talk to me like that!"

"Like what?" I shot back, " Like a sensible adult. And why can't I talk to you _**that way**_? Because it's the truth? Because you don't take advice from a 'hotshot paramedic'? A hose jockey telling you how to do your job? I know all about the rude and nasty way you've been treating John Gage. And you are wondering how I know that, I'm sure. It's because John Gage is my partner, friend, and my unofficial brother. He and I confide in each other, and he told me about the physical and verbal abuse you subjected him to."

Nurse Wretched glared at me. I glared back at her and continued with my verbal discourse.

"Well, let me tell you something, _Nurse Wretched_. I may be only a hotshot paramedic/hose jockey. But I'm also a human being, just like all the other patients here at Rampart. As such, we deserve better than to have you or anyone else put us down, stab us with more force than necessary when giving us shots or starting IV lines, or boss us around."

My tirade was tiring me out, but I was determined to get out what I had to say. I paused for breath and glanced at the audience at the door.

"And let me tell you something else, too, Miss Loveday Zimmerman. If you think Dixie McCall, Dr. Brackett, or Jim O'Brien will back you up in your methods of intimidating sick people because you have some sort of God complex, well you can just think again!"

A burst of applause startled me. Nurse Zimmerman looked humiliated.

Bested by a hose jockey/hotshot paramedic. Oh, sweet victory!

Mr. O'Brien gave Nurse Zimmerman a cold look. "Miss Zimmerman, my office please," he ordered. The nurse slunk out, looking dejected.

When all was said and done, my victory was a bittersweet one. I don't like to see people humiliated. But I also believe that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hopefully, Miss Loveday Zimmerman is sadder but wiser. I never want to stoop to her level.


End file.
